Yehudah Ziv

Yehudah Ziv was born in 1926 in Moscow

Yehudah Ziv was born in Moscow in 1926. His family moved to the Land of Israel when he was a small child and settled in Tiberias, then moved to Raanana in 1935. His father Ben-Zion Ziv was a teacher and principal, and his brother Jacob Ziv headed the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

He joined the Palmach in 1943 as a scout, which sparked his interest in the land. In the War of Independence he escorted convoys and later served as a vehicle officer in the Golani Brigade until January 1950.

After the war he taught for 18 years at the elementary school in Kfar Vitkin. In 1968 he became a geographer at the Nature Reserves Authority and surveyed Sinai. He later studied historical geography at Tel Aviv University.

In 1976 he joined the IDF Chief Education Officer's unit for knowledge of the land, serving as a lieutenant colonel until 1985. He wrote for many journals, and his books combined hiking routes with the origins of place names in Hebrew and Arabic.

He was named a Distinguished Citizen of Jerusalem and lived in the city's German Colony. He died in 2020 and was buried at Har HaMenuchot.